


Treasure

by LadyKnightOfHollyrose



Series: Everlong [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1990s, Drabble, Established Relationship, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-02-03 01:42:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1726544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyKnightOfHollyrose/pseuds/LadyKnightOfHollyrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The landline remained silent, as Gilbert knew it would.</p><p>(He was glad that no one was about to see his pathetic display when he glared at the offending object as he trudged back up the stairs to his room.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Treasure

**Author's Note:**

> For [this drabble prompt meme](http://hollyroses-vault.tumblr.com/post/84950428556/send-me-a-number-and-two-characters-get-a-drabble) for the prompt 'Precious Treasure', requested by [ariamoloetta](http://ariameloetta.tumblr.com/).

It was a good thing, all things considered, that he was home alone.

He’d managed to keep himself distracted for most of the day, walking Ludwig over to Feliciano’s in the morning and taking the pair of them (plus a surly Lovino) to the park for half an hour as a favour to their grandfather. He’d finished his chores in record time after returning home, his father looking up from his files suspiciously every time he walked by the study. He’d spent _hours_ on his Mega Drive biding his time as he jumped from one game to the next.

He’d puttered around on Lemmings for a while before switching to Golden Axe. Streets of Rage had bled into lunch time, and he ate the sandwich left in the kitchen for him in three bites before attempting to navigate a few caves in Sword of Vermilion. When not even Toejam and Earl could hold his attention, he heaved a sigh and turned the console off, cutting Toejam off mid-burp.

It was difficult, but Gilbert managed to ignore the urge to pause at the foot of the stairs as he would usually do when he wondered to the ground floor. Instead, he turned right to head down the hall and into the kitchen, continuing to ignore the thought that had been nagging at the fringes of his mind since mid-afternoon.

He rolled his eyes at the note his father had left on the fridge and heated up his dinner; he sat at the dining table with his back to the clock that hung from the wall, trying not to twitch at how _loud_ the second hand sounded. The landline should be chiming at him from the landing by now, causing his father to scowl across the table at him (“You’ve got an hour at most; don’t run the bill up and if you’re not off by nine I’ll pick up the phone in the study and listen in until you are. I have to use the internet this evening.”) and Ludwig to grumble about tangled phone cords.

The landline remained silent, as Gilbert knew it would.

(He was glad that no one was about to see his pathetic display when he glared at the offending object as he trudged back up the stairs to his room.)

Gilbert flopped backwards onto his bed, completely ignoring the exercise book laying precariously on his pillow, waiting to be filled with his summer assignments. Instead he reached under his bed frame, his fingers closing around his battered walkman.

He then reached over to his box of cassettes, letting his finger trail across each case’s spine until he found the one he was after. He plucked it from the box, sliding the tape into the walkman and hitting play, lips tugging up at the corner as he read the jumble of song titles scrawled across the cover in Arthur’s spidery hand.

Gilbert could still remember Arthur’s pure look of horror that first day in class when Gilbert had admitted he had no real interest in music. The blond had turned up to school a week later and shoved the cassette into Gilbert’s hands.

"A _mixtape_?” Gilbert had asked, incredulous.

Arthur had flushed down to his neck; at the time, Gilbert had thought it had been in embarassment and anger. He knew now that there was a little something else mixed in there as well. “This is your _real_ education. You’ll thank me for it.”

Gilbert never had thanked him for it, but it had been the start of a great (and terrible, in the mind of the various adults subjected to their presences) friendship. Which _might_ have turned into something a little more than friendship, but no one else knew that.

Except maybe Ludwig, but he knew how to keep his mouth shut.

Gilbert hadn’t even realised how big a part of his life Arthur had become over the last ten months until the other had gone and _left it entirely_.

(And after ten months of spending so much of his time, in _and_ out of school, with the other boy Gilbert didn’t think he was being melodramatic. At all. Even if Arthur would be back from visiting his family on the other side of the country in a couple of weeks.)

There hadn’t been enough space on the cover for the cassette, so Arthur had actually written Gilbert notes to go with each song - _this_ song was the best thing his ears would ever have the pleasure of hearing, that Gilbert _had_ to listen to the acoustic version of this song sometime (and Arthur had introduced it to Gilbert the first time he’d been over to his house) and “this one’s always on the radio - but the wanker DJ always  _talks over the end of it_ , it’s fucking ridiculous!”.

It always amused him to hear Arthur’s voice break in between certain tracks when exactly that had happened; Gilbert had a feeling that it blindsided Arthur every time with the way he seemed to curse the DJ out in increasingly colourful words after each offence.

When Gilbert’s eyes finally drifted shut for the night, it was with a grin on his face and the sound of Arthur muttering an impassioned “oh my god, _how_ could you talk over that riff” into his ear. The end of the month didn’t feel quite so far off, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> This is _so_ self indulgent. Hope you enjoyed reading it anyway XD


End file.
